A Barclays proprietary trading team that is set to spin out from the British bank this year is to be named Squarepoint, Financial News has learnt.

Name is ready for birth of Barclays prop spin-out

It is still in talks on the size of the assets it will manage. Barclays will not invest with the firm nor take an equity stake, a person familiar with the situation said.

Squarepoint will be formed from nQuants, the unit set up in 2000 by Gregoire Schneider and Olivier Durantel at Lehman Brothers and bought by Barclays after the collapse of the US bank. nQuants uses its own capital to employ systematic trading strategies, mainly in equities. This is a form of computer-based trading based on trends identified through technical analysis of market and economic data.

Squarepoint will take a similar approach and will have around 60 staff with offices in London, Paris, Zurich, New York, Tokyo and Singapore, the person said.

The division is part of Barclays’ non-core assets, which the lender said in May that it plans to sell or wind down, Bloomberg reported.

However, the spin-out of the nQuants unit has been planned for a number of years, the person said.
A Barclays spokesman declined to comment.

Squarepoint Capital LLP was established in May and its directors include Maxime Fortin, Thibaut Bondoux and Schneider, all traders within the nQuants unit.